December 9, 2008

Winter Meetings in Vegas yet to produce deals for Cards

For Cardinals' GM John Mozeliak, the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas have so far produced about as many deals for the Cardinals as the desert produces snowflakes.

Nadda.

There's still time, and Cardinal Nation can only hope that the Cardinals Crew in charge of player acquisitions will reap some type of benefits form what must surely be a marathon of talks.

The Cards have defined (and re-defined) their needs, but fulfilling a few of them (SS, LOOGY) doesn't necessarily make the next course of action easier, or even clear.

Just wondering, has anyone else noticed how the priority has shifted from LHRP and mid-IF to SP? Before the Cards obtained Trever Miller (LOOGY) and Khalil Greene (SS), there wasn't much emphasis put on adding a starting pitcher. Then, after each player was acquired, there still was no real urgency on a starter. At that time, the talk was completing the improvement project on the other half of the middle infield and snagging yet another LOOGY, or a LHRP long relief, or anyone who threw lefthanded at some point their life.

Suddenly, it seems, its all about the starting pitching again.

Okay. The Cards are somewhat limited by funds by not by trade possibilities, and lately, all the craze is (once more) that the outfield is too crowded.

Don't be surprised if suddenly (a suspect adverb at this point), Mozeliak has made a deal for a pricey pitcher. And it may not be a starter after all.

Simply chase after the Hot Stove crowd, which eventually will get it right, sometime during Spring Training.

The Hot Stove, Vegas, Mozeliak's veiled no comment equivalent of "I don't know where that rumor got started," the bevy of comments posted after all the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Hot Stove blogs, it's all a lot more fun than I thought it would be this year.

A lot of Cardinal bloggers will attempt to cross this no-man's land of non-dealmaking, like walking the desert to Vegas, Wednesday night at 10:00 p.m. CT, on Blogtalkradio. (Links will magically show up for that show on this blog tomorrow.)

With any luck, ahead of us, that snow drift will not be a mirage in the Nevada desert.